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Expositor's Bible Commentary Habakkuk 2:1 I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved. 7 Habakkuk 1:1-17 Hab 1:2-17 ; Habakkuk 2:1-4 (or 8) Yet it is the first piece which raises the most difficult questions. All admit that it is to be dated somewhere along the line of Jeremiah’s long career, c. 627-586. There is no doubt about the general trend of the argument: it is a plaint to God on the sufferings of the righteous under tyranny, with God’s answer. But the order and connection of the paragraphs of the argument are not clear. There is also difference of opinion as to who the tyrant is-native, Assyrian, or Chaldee; and this leads to a difference, of course, about the date, which ranges from the early years of Josiah to the end of Jehoiakim’s reign, or from about 630 to 597. As the verses lie, their argument is this. In Habakkuk 1:2-4 Habakkuk asks the Lord how long the wicked are to oppress the righteous, to the paralyzing of the Torah, or revelation of His Law, and the making futile of judgment. For answer the Lord tells him, Habakkuk 1:5-11 , to look round among the heathen: He is about to raise up the Chaldees to do His work, a people swift, self-reliant, irresistible. Upon which Habakkuk resumes his question, Habakkuk 1:12-17 , how long will God suffer a tyrant who sweeps up the peoples into his net like fish? Is he to go on with this forever? In Habakkuk 2:1 Habakkuk prepares for an answer, which comes in Habakkuk 2:2-4 : let the prophet wait for the vision though it tarries; the proud oppressor cannot last, but the righteous shall live by his constancy, or faithfulness. The difficulties are these. Who are the wicked oppressors in Habakkuk 1:2-4 ? Are they Jews, or some heathen nation? And what is the connection between Habakkuk 1:1-4 and Habakkuk 1:5-11 ? Are the Chaldees, who are described in the latter, raised up to punish the tyrant complained against in the former? To these questions three different sets of answers have been given. First: the great majority of critics take the wrong complained of in Habakkuk 1:2-4 to be wrong done by unjust and cruel Jews to their countrymen, that is, civic disorder and violence, and believe that in Habakkuk 1:5-11 Jehovah is represented as raising up the Chaldees to punish the sin of Judah-a message which is pretty much the same as Jeremiah’s. But Habakkuk goes further: the Chaldees themselves with their cruelties aggravate his problem how God can suffer wrong, and he appeals again to God, Habakkuk 1:12-17 . Are the Chaldees to be allowed to devastate forever? The answer is given, as above, in Habakkuk 2:1-4 . Such is practically the view of Pusey, Delitzsch, Kleinert, Kuenen, Sinker, Driver, Orelli, Kirkpatrick, Wildeboer, and Davidson, a formidable league, and Davidson says "this is the most natural sense of the verses and of the words used in them." But these scholars differ as to the date. Pusey, Delitzsch, and Volck take the whole passage from Habakkuk 1:5 as prediction, and date it from before the rise of the Chaldee power in 625, attributing the internal wrongs of Judah described in Habakkuk 1:2-4 to Manasseh’s reign or the early years of Josiah. But the rest, on the grounds that the prophet shows some experience of the Chaldean methods of warfare, and that the account of the internal disorder in Judah does not suit Josiah’s reign, bring the passage down to the reign of Jehoiakim, 608-598, or of Jehoiachin, 597. Kleinert and Von Orelli date it before the battle of Carchemish, 605, in which the Chaldean Nebuchadrezzar wrested from Egypt the Empire of the Western Asia, on the ground that after that Habakkuk could not have called a Chaldean invasion of Judah incredible. { Habakkuk 1:5 } But Kuenen, Driver, Kirkpatrick, Wildeboer, and Davidson date it after Carchemish. To Driver it must be immediately after, and before Judah became alarmed at the consequences to herself. To Davidson the description of the Chaldeans "is scarcely conceivable before the battle," "hardly one would think before the deportation of the people under Jehoiachin." This also is Kuenen’s view, who thinks that Judah must have suffered at least the first Chaldean raids, and he explains the use of an undoubted future in Habakkuk 1:5 , "Lo, I am about to raise up the Chaldeans," as due to the prophet’s predilection for a dramatic style. "He sets himself in the past, and represents the already experienced chastisement [of Judah] as having been then announced by Jehovah. His contemporaries could not have mistaken his meaning." Second: others, however, deny that Habakkuk 1:2-4 refers to the internal disorder of Judah, except as the effect of foreign tyranny. The "righteous" mentioned there are Israel as a whole, "the wicked" their heathen oppressors. So Hitzig, Ewald, Konig, and practically Smend. Ewald is so clear that Habakkuk ascribes no sin to Judah, that he says we might be led by this to assign the prophecy to the reign of the righteous Josiah; but he prefers, because of the vivid sense which the prophet betrays of actual experience of the Chaldees, to date the passage from the reign of Jehoiakim, and to explain Habakkuk’s silence about his people’s sinfulness as due to his overwhelming impression of Chaldean cruelty. Konig takes Habakkuk 1:2-4 as a general complaint of the violence that fills the prophet’s day, and Habakkuk 1:5-11 as a detailed description of the Chaldeans, the instruments of this violence. Habakkuk 1:5-11 , therefore, give not the judgment upon the wrongs described in Habakkuk 1:2-4 , but the explanation of them. Lebanon is already wasted by the Chaldeans; { Habakkuk 2:17 } therefore the whole prophecy must be assigned to the days of Jehoiakim. Giesebrecht and Wellhausen adhere to the view that no sins of Judah are mentioned, but that the "righteous." and "wicked" of Habakkuk 1:4 are the same as in Habakkuk 1:13 , viz. , Israel and a heathen tyrant. But this leads them to dispute that the present order of the paragraphs of the prophecy is the right one. In Habakkuk 1:5 the Chaldeans are represented as about to be raised up for the first time, although their violence has already been described in Habakkuk 1:1-4 , and in Habakkuk 1:12-17 these are already in full career. Moreover Habakkuk 1:12 follows on naturally to Habakkuk 1:4 . Accordingly these critics would remove the section Habakkuk 1:5-11 . Giesebrecht prefixes it to Habakkuk 1:1 , and dates the whole passage from the Exile. Wellhausen calls Habakkuk 1:5-11 an older passage than the rest of the prophecy, and removes it altogether as not Habakkuk’s. To the latter he assigns what remains, Habakkuk 1:1-4 ; Habakkuk 1:12-17 ; Habakkuk 1:2 I-5, and dates it from the reign of Jehoiakim. Third: from each of these groups of critics Budde of Strasburg borrows something, but so as to construct an arrangement of the verses, and to reach a date, for the whole, from which both differ. With Hitzig, Ewald, Konig, Smend, Giesebrecht, and Wellhausen he agrees that the violence complained of in Habakkuk 1:2-4 is that inflicted by a heathen oppressor, "the wicked," on the Jewish nation, the "righteous." But with Kuenen and others he holds that the Chaldeans are raised up, according to Habakkuk 1:5-11 , to punish the violence complained of in Habakkuk 1:2-4 and again in Habakkuk 1:12-17 . In these verses it is the ravages of another heathen power than the Chaldeans which Budde describes. The Chaldeans are still to come, and cannot be the same as the devastator whose long continued tyranny is described in Habakkuk 1:12-17 . They are rather the power which is to punish him. He can only be the Assyrian. But if that be so, the proper place for the passage, Habakkuk 1:5-11 , which describes the rise of the Chaldeans must be after the description of the Assyrian ravages in Habakkuk 1:12-17 , and in the body of God’s answer to the prophet which we find in Habakkuk 2:2 ff. Budde therefore places Habakkuk 1:5-11 after Habakkuk 2:2-4 . But if the Chaldeans are still to come, and Budde thinks that they are described vaguely and with a good deal of imagination, the prophecy thus arranged must fall somewhere between 625, when Nabopolassar the Chaldean made himself independent of Assyria and King of Babylon, and 607, when Assyria fell. That the prophet calls Judah "righteous" is proof that he wrote after the great Reform of 621; hence, too, his reference to Torah and Mishpat, { Habakkuk 1:4 } and his complaint of the obstacles which Assyrian supremacy presented to their free course. As the Assyrian yoke appears not to have been felt anywhere in Judah by 608, Budde would fix the exact date of Habakkuk’s prophecy about 615. To these conclusions of Budde, Cornill, who in 1891 had very confidently assigned the prophecy of Habakkuk to the reign of Jehoiakim, gave his adherence in 1896. Budde’s very able and ingenious argument has been subjected to a searching criticism by Professor Davidson, who emphasizes first the difficulty of accounting for the transposition of Habakkuk 1:5-11 from what Budde alleges to have been its original place after Habakkuk 2:4 to its present position in chapter 1. He points out that if Habakkuk 1:2-4 ; Habakkuk 1:12-17 and Habakkuk 2:5 ff. refer to the Assyrian, it is strange the latter is not once mentioned. Again, by 615 we may infer (though we know little of Assyrian history at this time) that the Assyrian’s hold on Judah was already too relaxed for the prophet to impute to him power to hinder the Law, especially as Josiah had begun to carry his reforms into the northern kingdom: and the knowledge of the Chaldeans displayed in Habakkuk 1:5-11 is too fresh and detailed to suit so early a date: it was possible only after the battle of Carchemish. And again, it is improbable that we have two different nations, as Budde thinks, described by the very similar phrases in Habakkuk 1:11 , "his own power becomes his god," and in Habakkuk 1:16 , "he sacrifices to his net." Again, Habakkuk 1:5-11 would not read quite naturally after Habakkuk 2:4 . And in the woes pronounced on the oppressor it is not one nation, the Chaldeans, which are to spoil him, but all the remnant of the peoples. { Habakkuk 2:7-8 } These objections are not inconsiderable. But are they conclusive? And if not, is any of the other theories of the prophecy less beset with difficulties? The objections are scarcely conclusive. We have no proof that the power of Assyria was altogether removed from Judah by 615; on the contrary, even in 608 Assyria was still the power with which Egypt went forth to contend for the empire of the world. Seven years earlier her hand may well have been strong upon Palestine. Again, by 615 the Chaldeans, a people famous in Western Asia for a long time, had been ten years independent: men in Palestine may have been familiar with their methods of warfare: at least it is impossible to say they were not. There is more weight in the objection drawn from the absence of the name of Assyria from all of the passages which Budde alleges describe it; nor do we get over all difficulties of text by inserting Habakkuk 1:5-11 between Habakkuk 2:4-5 . Besides, how does Budde explain Habakkuk 1:12 b on the theory that it means Assyria? Is the clause not premature at that point? Does he propose to elide it, like Wellhausen? And in any case an erroneous transposition of the original is impossible to prove and difficult to account for. But have not the other theories of the Book of Habakkuk equally great difficulties? Surely, we cannot say that the "righteous" and the "wicked" in Habakkuk 1:4 mean something different from what they do in Habakkuk 1:13 ? But if this is impossible the construction of the book supported by the great majority of critics falls to the ground. Professor Davidson justly says that it has "something artificial in it" and "puts a strain on the natural sense." How can the Chaldeans be described in Habakkuk 1:5 as "just about to be raised up," and in Habakkuk 1:14-17 as already for a long time the devastators of earth? Ewald’s, Hitzig’s, and Konig’s views are equally beset by these difficulties; Konig’s exposition also "strains the natural sense." Everything, in fact, points to Habakkuk 1:5-11 being out of its proper place; it is no wonder that Giesebreeht, Wellhausen, and Budde independently arrived at this conclusion. Whether Budde be right in inserting Habakkuk 1:5 . If after Habakkuk 2:4 , there can be little doubt of the correctness of his views that Habakkuk 1:12-17 describe a heathen oppressor who is not the Chaldeans. Budde says this oppressor is Assyria. Can he be any one else? From 608 to 605 Judah was sorely beset by Egypt, who had overrun all Syria up to the Euphrates. The Egyptians killed Josiah, deposed his successor, and put their own vassal under a very heavy tribute; "gold and silver were exacted of the people of the land": the picture of distress in Habakkuk 1:1-4 might easily be that of Judah in these three terrible years. And if we assigned the prophecy to them, we should certainly give it a date at which the knowledge of the Chaldeans expressed in Habakkuk 1:5-11 was more probable than at Budde’s date of 615. But then does the description in chap. Habakkuk 1:14-17 suit Egypt so well as it does Assyria? We can hardly affirm this, until we know more of what Egypt did in those days, but it is very probable. Therefore, the theory supported by the majority of critics being unnatural, we are, with our present meager knowledge of the time, flung back upon Budde’s interpretation that the prophet in Habakkuk 1:2-17 ; Habakkuk 2:1-4 appeals from oppression by a heathen power, which is not the Chaldean, but upon which the Chaldean shall bring the just vengeance of God. The tyrant is either Assyria up to about 615 or Egypt from 608 to 605, and there is not a little to be said for the latter date. In arriving at so uncertain a conclusion about Habakkuk 1:1-17 - Habakkuk 2:4 , we have but these consolations, that no other is possible in our present knowledge, and that the uncertainty will not hamper us much in our appreciation of Habakkuk’s spiritual attitude and poetic gifts. FURTHER NOTE ON Habakkuk 1:1-17 - Habakkuk 2:4 Since this chapter was in print Nowack’s " Die Kleinen Propheten " in the " Handkommentar z. A.T ." has been published. He recognizes emphatically that the disputed passage about the Chaldeans, Habakkuk 1:5-9 , is out of place where it lies (this against Kuenen and the other authorities cited above), and admits that it follows on, with a natural connection, to Habakkuk 2:4 , to which Budde proposes to attach it. Nevertheless for other reasons, which he does not state, he regards Budde’s proposal as untenable; and reckons the disputed passage to be by another hand than Habakkuk’s, and intruded into the latter’s argument. Habakkuk’s argument he assigns to after 605; perhaps 590. The tyrant complained against would therefore be the Chaldean.-Driver in the 6th edition of his "Introduction" (1897) deems Budde’s argument "too ingenious," and holds by the older and most numerously supported argument (above).-On a review of the case in the light of these two discussions, the present writer holds to his opinion that Budde’s rearrangement, which he has adopted, offers the fewest difficulties. THE PROPHET AS SCEPTIC Habakkuk 1:1-17 - Habakkuk 2:4 OF the prophet Habakkuk we know nothing that is personal save his name - to our ears his somewhat odd name. It is the intensive form of a root which means to caress or embrace. More probably it was given to him as a child, than afterwards assumed as a symbol of his clinging to God. Tradition says that Habakkuk was a priest, the son of Joshua, of the tribe of Levi, but this is only an inference from the late liturgical notes to the Psalm which has been appended to his prophecy. All that we know for certain is that he was a contemporary of Jeremiah, with a sensitiveness under wrong and impulses to question God which remind us of Jeremiah; but with a literary power which is quite his own. We may emphasize the latter, even though we recognize upon his writing the influence of Isaiah’s. Habakkuk’s originality, however, is deeper than style. He is the earliest who is known to us of a new school of religion in Israel. He is called "prophet," but at first he does not adopt the attitude which is characteristic of the prophets. His face is set in an opposite direction to theirs. They address the nation Israel, on behalf of God: he rather speaks to God on behalf of Israel. Their task was Israel’s sin, the proclamation of God’s doom, and the offer of His grace to their penitence. Habakkuk’s task is God Himself, the effort to find out what He means by permitting tyranny and wrong. They attack the sins; he is the first to state the problems, of life. To him the prophetic revelation, the Torah, is complete: it has been codified in Deuteronomy and enforced by Josiah. Habakkuk’s business is not to add to it, but to ask why it does not work. Why does God suffer wrong to triumph, so that the Torah is paralyzed, and Mishpat, the prophetic "justice" or "judgment," comes to naught? The prophets travailed for Israel’s character-to get the people to love justice till justice prevailed among them: Habakkuk feels justice cannot prevail in Israel, because of the great disorder which God permits to fill the world. It is true that he arrives at a prophetic attitude, and before the end authoritatively declares God’s will; but he begins by searching for the latter, with an appreciation of the great obscurity cast over it by the facts of life. He complains to God, asks questions, and expostulates. This is the beginning of speculation in Israel. It does not go far: it is satisfied with stating questions to God; it does not, directly at least, state questions against Him. But Habakkuk at least feels that revelation is baffled by experience, that the facts of life bewilder a man who believes in the God whom the prophets have declared to Israel. As in Zephaniah prophecy begins to exhibit traces of apocalypse, so in Habakkuk we find it developing the first impulses of speculation. We have seen that the course of events which troubles Habakkuk and renders the Torah ineffectual is somewhat obscure. On one interpretation of these two chapters, that which takes the present order of their verses as the original, Habakkuk asks why God is silent in face of the injustice which fills the whole horizon, { Habakkuk 1:1-4 } is told to look round among the heathen and see how God is raising up the Chaldeans, { Habakkuk 1:5-11 } presumably to punish this injustice (if it be Israel’s own) or to overthrow it (if Habakkuk 1:1-4 mean that it is inflicted on Israel by a foreign power). But the Chaldeans only aggravate the prophet’s problem; they themselves are a wicked and oppressive people: how can God suffer them? { Habakkuk 1:12-17 } Then come the prophet’s waiting for an answer { Habakkuk 2:1 } and the answer itself. { Habakkuk 2:2 ff.} Another interpretation takes the passage about the Chaldeans { Habakkuk 1:5-11 } to be out of place where it now lies, removes it to after chapter 4 as a part of God’s answer to the prophet’s problem, and leaves the remainder of chapter1 as the description of the Assyrian oppression of Israel, baffling the Torah and perplexing the prophet’s faith in a Holy and Just God. Of these two views the former is, we have seen, somewhat artificial, and though the latter is by no means proved, the arguments for it are sufficient to justify us in re-arranging the verses of chapter 1-2:4 in accordance with its proposals. "The Oracle which Habakkuk the Prophet Received by Vision. How long, O Jehovah, have I called and Thou hearest not? I cry to Thee. Wrong! and Thou sendest no help. Why make me look upon sorrow, And fill mine eyes with trouble? Violence and wrong are before me, Strife comes and quarrel arises. So the Law is benumbed, and judgment never gets forth: For the wicked beleaguers the righteous, So judgment comes forth perverted." "Art not, Thou of old, Jehovah, my God, my Holy One? Purer of eyes than to behold evil, And that canst not gaze upon trouble! Why gazest Thou upon traitors, Art dumb when the wicked swallows him that is more righteous than he? Thou hast let men be made like fish of the sea, Like worms that have no ruler! He lifts the whole of it with his angle: Draws it in with his net, sweeps it in his drag-net: So rejoices and exults. So he sacrifices to his net, and offers incense to his drag-net; For by them is his portion fat, and his food rich. Shall he forever draw his sword, And ceaselessly, ruthlessly massacre nations?" "Upon my watch-tower I will stand, And take my post on the rampart. I will watch to see what He will say to me, And what answer I get back to my plea". "And Jehovah answered me and said: Write the vision, and make it plain upon tablets, That he may run who reads it". "For the vision is for a time yet to be fixed, Yet it hurries to the end, and shall not fail: Though it linger, wait thou for it; Coming it shall come, and shall not be behind. Lo! swollen, not level is his soul within him; But the righteous shall live by his faithfulness. { Habakkuk 1:5-11 } round among the heathen, and look well, Shudder and be shocked; For I am about to do a work in your days, Ye shall not believe it when told. For, lo, I am about to raise up the Kasdim, A people the most bitter and the most hasty, That traverse the breadths of the earth, To possess dwelling-places not their own. Awful and terrible are they; From themselves start their purpose and rising". "Fleeter than leopards their steeds, Swifter than night-wolves. Their horsemen leap from afar; They swoop like the eagle a-haste to devour. All for wrong do they come: The set of their faces is forward, And they sweep up captives like sand. They-at kings do they scoff, And princes are sport to them. They-they laugh at each fortress, Heap dust up and take it! Then the wind shifts and they pass! But doomed are those whose own strength is their god!" The difficulty of deciding between the various arrangements of the two chapters of Habakkuk does not, fortunately, prevent us from appreciating his argument. What he feels throughout (this is obvious, however you arrange his verses) is the tyranny of a great heathen power, be it Assyrian, Egyptian, or Chaldean. The prophet’s horizon is filled with Habakkuk 1:3 ; Israel thrown into disorder, revelation paralyzed, justice perverted. { Habakkuk 1:4 } But, like Nahum, Habakkuk feels not for Israel alone. The tyrant has outraged humanity. { Habakkuk 1:13-17 } He "sweeps peoples into his net," and as soon as he empties this, he fills it again "ceaselessly," as if there were no just God above. He exults in his vast cruelty, and has success so unbroken that he worships the very means of it. In itself such impiety is gross enough, but to a heart that believes in God it is a problem of exquisite pain. Habakkuk’s is the burden of the finest faith. He illustrates the great commonplace of religions doubt, that problems arise and become rigorous in proportion to the purity and tenderness of man’s conception of God. It is not the coarsest but the finest temperaments which are exposed to skepticism. Every advance in assurance of God or in appreciation of His character develops new perplexities in face of the facts of experience, and faith becomes her own most cruel troubler. Habakkuk’s questions are not due to any cooling of the religious temper in Israel, but are begotten of the very heat and ardor of prophecy in its encounter with experience. His tremulousness, for instance, is impossible without the high knowledge of God’s purity and faithfulness, which older prophets had achieved in Israel:- "Art not Thou of old, O Lord, my God, my Holy One, Purer of eyes than to behold evil, And incapable of looking upon wrong?" His despair is that which comes only from eager and persevering habits of prayer:- "How long, O Lord, have I called and Thou hearest not! I cry to Thee of wrong and Thou givest no help!" His questions, too, are bold with that sense of God’s absolute power, which flashed so bright in. Israel as to blind men’s eyes to all secondary and intermediate causes. "Thou," he says, - "Thou hast made men like fishes of the sea, Like worms that have no ruler," boldly charging the Almighty in almost the temper of Job himself, with being the cause of the cruelty inflicted by the unchecked tyrant upon the nations; "for shall evil happen, and Jehovah not have done it?" Thus all through we perceive that Habakkuk’s trouble springs from the central founts of prophecy. This skepticism-if we may venture to give the name to the first motions in Israel’s mind of that temper which undoubtedly became skepticism-this skepticism was the inevitable heritage of prophecy: the stress and pain to which prophecy was forced by its own strong convictions in face of the facts of experience. Habakkuk, "the prophet," as he is called, stood in the direct line of his order, but just because of that he was the father also of Israel’s religious doubt. But a discontent springing from sources so pure was surely the preparation of its own healing. In a verse of exquisite beauty the prophet describes the temper in which he trusted for an answer to all his doubts:- "On my watch-tower will I stand, And take up my post on the rampart; I will watch to see what He says to me, And what answer I get back to my plea." This verse is not to be passed over, as if its metaphors were merely for literary effect. They express rather the moral temper in which the prophet carries his doubt, or, to use New Testament language, "the good conscience, which some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck." Nor is this temper patience only and a certain elevation of mind, nor only a fixed attention and sincere willingness to be answered. Through the chosen words there breathes a noble sense of responsibility. The prophet feels he has a post to hold, a rampart to guard. He knows the heritage of truth, won by the great minds of the past; and in a world seething with disorder, he will take his stand upon that and see what more his God will send him. At the very least, he will not indolently drift, but feel that he has a standpoint, however narrow, and bravely hold it. Such has ever been the attitude of the greatest skeptics-not only, let us repeat, earnestness and sincerity, but the recognition of duty towards the truth: the conviction that even the most tossed and troubled minds have somewhere a {missing Greek word} appointed of God, and upon it interests human and Divine to defend. Without such a conscience, skepticism, however intellectually gifted, will avail nothing. Men who drift never discover, never grasp aught. They are only dazzled by shifting gleams of the truth, only fretted and broken by experience. Taking then his stand within the patient temper, but especially upon the conscience of his great order, the prophet waits for his answer and the healing of his trouble. The answer comes to him in the promise of "a Vision," which, though it seem to linger, will not be later than the time fixed by God. "A Vision" is something realized, experienced-something that will be as actual and present to the waiting prophet as the cruelty which now fills his sight. Obviously some series of historical events is meant, by which, in the course of trine, the unjust oppressor of the nations shall be overthrown and the righteous vindicated. Upon the re-arrangement of the text proposed by Budde, this series of events is the rise of the Chaldeans, and it is an argument in favor of his proposal that the promise of "a Vision" requires some such historical picture to follow it as we find in the description of the Chaldeans- Habakkuk 1:5-11 . This, too, is explicitly introduced by terms of vision: "See among the nations and look round Yea, behold I am about to raise up the Kasdim." But before this vision is given, and for the uncertain interval of waiting ere the facts come to pass, the Lord enforces upon His watching servant the great moral principle that arrogance and tyranny cannot, from the nature of them, last, and that if the righteous be only patient he will survive them:- "Lo, swollen, not level, is his soul within him; But the righteous shall live by his faithfulness." We have already seen that the text of the first line of this couplet is uncertain. Yet the meaning is obvious, partly in the words themselves, and partly by their implied contrast with the second line. The soul of the wicked is a radically morbid thing: inflated, swollen (unless we should read perverted, which more plainly means the same thing), not level, not natural and normal. In the nature of things it cannot endure. "But the righteous shall live by his faithfulness." This word, wrongly translated faith by the Greek and other versions, is concentrated by Paul in his repeated quotation from the Greek { Romans 1:17 , Galatians 3:11 } upon that single act of faith by which the sinner secures forgiveness and justification. With Habakkuk it is a wider term. ‘Emunah, from a verb meaning originally to be firm, is used in the Old Testament in the physical sense of steadfastness. So it is applied to the arms of Moses held up by Aaron and Hur over the battle with Amalek: "they were steadiness till the going down of the sun." { Exodus 17:12 } It is also used of the faithful discharge of public office { 2 Chronicles 19:9 } and of fidelity as between man and Hosea 2:22 (Heb.). It is also faithful testimony, { Proverbs 14:5 } equity in judgment, { Isaiah 11:5 } truth in speech, { Proverbs 12:17 ; cf. Jeremiah 9:2 } and sincerity or honest dealing. { Proverbs 12:22 } Of course it has faith in God as its secret-the verb from which it is derived is the regular Hebrew term to believe-but it is rather the temper which faith produces of endurance, steadfastness, integrity. Let the righteous, however baffled his faith be by experience, hold on in loyalty to God and duty, and he shall live. Though St. Paul, as we have said, used the Greek rendering of "faith" for the enforcement of trust in God’s mercy through Jesus Christ as the secret of forgiveness and life it is rather to Habakkuk’s wider intention of patience and fidelity that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews returns in his fuller quotation of the verse: "For yet a little while and He that shall come will come and will not tarry; now the just shall live by faith, but if he draw back My soul shall have no pleasure in." { Hebrews 10:37-38 } Such, then is the tenor of the passage. In face of experience that baffles faith, the duty of Israel is patience in loyalty to God. In this the nascent skepticism of Israel received its first great commandment, and this it never forsook. Intellectual questions arose, of which Habakkuk’s were but the faintest foreboding-questions concerning not only the mission and destiny of the nation, but the very foundation of justice and the character of God Himself. Yet did no skeptic, however bold and however provoked, forsake his faithfulness. Even Job, when most audaciously arraigning the God of his experience, turned from Him to God as in his heart of hearts he believed He must be, experience notwithstanding. Even the Preacher, amid the aimless flux and drift which he finds in the universe, holds to the conclusion of the whole matter in a command, which better than any other defines the contents of the faithfulness enforced by Habakkuk: "Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole of man." It has been the same with the great mass of the race. Repeatedly disappointed of their hopes, and crushed for ages beneath an intolerable tyranny, have they not exhibited the same heroic temper with which their first great questioner was endowed? Endurance, this above all others has been the quality of Israel: "though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." And, therefore, as Paul’s adaptation, "The just shall live by faith," has become the motto of evangelical Christianity, so we may say that Habakkuk’s original of it has been the motto and the fame of Judaism: "The righteous shall live by His faithfulness." Habakkuk 2:5 Yea also, because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man, neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people: Habakkuk 2:1-20 Hab 2:5-20 The dramatic piece Habakkuk 1:2-17 ; Habakkuk 2:1-4 is succeeded by a series of fine taunt-songs, starting after an introduction from Habakkuk 2:6 b, then Habakkuk 2:9 , Habakkuk 2:11

I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower. Habakkuk 2:1 Awaiting the Lord's message J. C. Johnston, M. A. Nothing definite is known of this man Habakkuk. In the text we see him preparing himself for his holy task — ascending his tower, that he may see; secluding himself, that he may hear; making his bosom bare, that he may feel the message of the Unseen. I. THE SECRET OF LIFE IS TO REALISE THE UNSEEN. To this man the world is full of an unseen, majestic presence. The very air he breathes throbs with the pulse of God, and the silence may be broken at any time by God's voice. So he spends life watching, listening, waiting. Is not every life noble and grand and true just in proportion as it realises this, as it seeks the Unseen? This is indeed the Gospel — that God is now reconciled to us, and that His presence broods over us in unutterable love. To realise this and enter into its blessedness is not only the secret of life, but it is the whole duty of man. II. WE OUGHT TO EXPECT MESSAGES FROM THE UNSEEN. To the prophet this great Unseen One is no dumb God. The truth is, that God seems to be always seeking some heart sufficiently at leisure from itself that lie may talk with it. He found such an one in Abraham and in Moses. In the days of Eli we read there was "no open vision." God was silent, for none could hear His voice; God was invisible, for earth-blinded eyes could not see Him. If we could but hear, He has much to say unto us — much about His purposes of grace toward ourselves, and about His purpose toward the world; much about the coming glory. In three ways — 1. By His Spirit through the Word. 2. By His Spirit through our conscience. 3. By His spirit through His Providence.We need these voices from the Unseen to guide and help us in the sorrows and perplexities of our lives. If it be a miracle for the Unseen to speak with men, then that is a miracle that happens almost every hour. III. HOW WE SHOULD DISPOSE OURSELVES TO RECEIVE GOD'S MESSAGES. 1. We should get up, up above the heads of the crowd, up above the crush and clamour of the worldly throng, to where there is clearer air and greater peace. It is not the new play we want, nor the most fashionable church, but the new vision of His face. Wherever we can get most of that is the place for us. 2. We are next to quicken our whole being into a listening and receptive attitude. 3. Quiet is needed also; for God most often speaks in a still, small voice. ( J. C. Johnston, M. A. ) The watch-tower R. Morton. Almost nothing is known about the personal history of the author of the prophecy contained in this book. He himself retires into the background, as one content to be forgotten if the Word of God uttered by him receives the attention it deserves. The self-abnegation of many of those whom God employed to do a great work among His ancient people teaches a lesson that is much needed. It implies a whole-hearted consecration to God's work and interests in the world that ought to be more aimed at than it sometimes is. It is a trial that comes to the prophet's faith, and how he met it, that are brought before us in the whole passage of which our text forms a part. What was the trial of his faith? In answer to his Cry to God to interpose to put a stop to abounding wickedness in the Covenant nation, the reply is given to him that terrible judgment was about to fall upon it, and from an unexpected quarter — from Babylon. The havoc that would be made by this fierce, proud, self-sufficient world-power is made in vision to pass distinctly and clearly before him. He sees its terrible army marching through the land — a garden of Eden before it and a wilderness behind it. The scene that thus fills his mind's eye, his patriotic spirit would not allow him to contemplate unmoved. He trembles for the safety of his people under this dark cloud of judgment. He seeks refuge from them in God, holding fast the conviction that a righteous God would not allow a wicked, proud nation like that of the Chaldeans to hold His people for ever in cruel bondage. "Art Thou of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst Thou not look upon iniquity? Wherefore lookest Thou, then, upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest Thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?" As he contemplates the Chaldean army, conscious of its own strength and making a god of it, ravaging the whole land, this conviction grew doubtful to him. It seemed sometimes to slip away from his grasp. This was the trial of his faith, and the greatness of it can only be measured by the sincerity of his religion and the strength of his patriotism. How does he meet this trial? The words of our text inform us. "I will stand upon my watch-tower, and set me upon the fortress, and will watch to see what He will say in me, and what I shall answer to my plea." He resolves to lay his doubts before God, and to wait upon Him — withdrawing his attention from all earthly things — for solution. In carrying out this resolution he compares himself to one who mounts the watch-tower — attached to ancient towns and fortresses — that he may scan the surrounding district to see if any one might be approaching, whether friend or foe. Like one on the watch-tower in the eager strained outlook for some messenger, would the prophet be in relation to the expected explanation from God. When he himself tells us that on this watch-tower he was watching to see what God would say in him — for this is the proper rendering of the words — waiting for an inward voice he could recognise as God's, the spiritual nature of the transaction is placed beyond all doubt. The revelation which came to his soul thus waiting, of which we have an account in the subsequent part of the chapter, solved his difficulties and strengthened his faith and hope. The assurance was given to him, as we learn from the 14th verse, that not only Canaan, but "the whole earth would be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." I. THE MOUNTING OF THIS WATCHTOWER. This is an exercise to which we must be no strangers if we are to have God's light shining on our path, God's voice saying to us: "This is the way, walk ye in it," and God's hand laid upon us to strengthen us for every trial and conflict. 1. May we not regard it as laying before God the difficulties caused by his own dealings? There was a mystery in the events of Providence which the prophet felt that he could not penetrate. Was it possible that God's chosen people — to whom pertained the adoption and the glory and the covenants — would be overwhelmed in the disasters in which he saw them plunged? Would the ungodly might of Chaldea be allowed to crush them altogether, and all the hopes bound up in their life? To the eye of sense this seemed likely, but the prophet knew that behind all events and forces there was a personal God — Jehovah the Covenant God of Israel. He knew that they were but carrying out His will, and he would not believe, even though the appearances of things pointed to it — that that will was seeking the destruction of the Covenant nation. Sense was drawing him one way, his faith was drawing him another, and the questions born of this conflict which were agitating his mind he wisely resolves to lay before God. What are Job's wonderful speeches in his conversations with his friends, but a series of impassioned reasonings with God about His dealings with him? What, again, was Asaph's exercise under the triumphing of the wicked as recorded in a well-known Psalm, but a talking with God about HIS dealings? And do we not find the plaintive Jeremiah, when his soul was sore vexed with cruel opposition, saying, "Righteous art Thou, O Lord, when I plead with Thee; yet let me talk with Thee of Thy judgments. Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?" It is not a blind impersonal force that the believer sees behind the events that take place, compelling sullen submission to whatever happens? No! It is a loving Father to whom appeal may be made about the perplexing questions that may be aroused by His own dealings. Fatalism — in which things, are accepted simply because they cannot be changed — is not Christian resignation, and falls far short of the attitude in which the believing heart can find rest. Openness in our dealings with God is what He delights in, and what will lead us to the knowledge of that secret of His that is with them that fear Him. Faith will have its difficulties both with the wondrous revelation God has given to us in His Word, and with the unfolding of His purposes in the course of His Providence. The finest natures — those touched to finest issues — are very often those who feel these difficulties most keenly, and have to fight their way to the bright shining shore of certainty and rest by buffeting with many a storm. And the best way of dealing with all those difficulties is just to take them to the watch-tower and lay them before God. 2. But this dealing with God about questions that may perplex us implies the stilling of our souls before Him, that He may give us light and guidance. The prophet after pleading with God, expostulating with Him on the apparent contradiction between the Divine providence and the Divine promise, places himself before God and waits for His voice. That he may hear it all the better — may catch the slightest whisper of the Divine voice within him — he retires into himself, quiets his own spirit, and intently waits. The expressive language of the Psalmist. may be used to describe his "attitude," "My soul is silence unto God. And this exercise, need we say, is essential to the obtaining of any deep insight into God's will, to our receiving those discoveries of Himself as a God of grace and love, that will give us rest even under the most trying dispensations. It is by the Divine voice within us that the Divine voice without us in His written Word is clearly, distinctly understood, and is made to throw its blessed light upon Divine Providence. Without the inward revelation that comes to us by the teaching of God's Spirit, the outward revelation given in our Bibles will remain dark and unintelligible. If we do not withdraw now and again from the bustle and noise of the world, and commune with our own hearts, the Divine voice will be lost to us. It will remain unheard, as the bell striking the hour above some busy thoroughfare is often unheard by those in the throng. It is the calm lake which mirrors the sun most perfectly, and so it is the calm soul that will catch the most of the heavenly glory that shines upon the watch tower, and reflect it on the world around. But we must not think of this calmness or silence of the soul toward God as a mere passive attitude. "It requires the intensest energy of all our being to keep all our being still and waiting upon God. All our strength must be put into the task; and our soul will never be more intensely alive than when in deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God." Though it may involve an apparent contradiction, the silent soul will be one full of the spirit of prayer. The prophet had been pleading with God for light to guide him in dark days, and it is with a longing pleading soul that he mounts the watch-tower and waits for an answer. He has directed his prayer to God, and he looks up expecting an answer. There is really as much prayer in this silent submissive waiting for an answer to his cry as there was in the cry itself. The expectant look of the beggar after his request has been made has often more power to move the generous heart than the request itself. And the mounting of the watch-tower after prayer to maintain an outlook for the promised answer puts beyond all doubt that we have been sincere and earnest in the exercise, and will have power with God. The place on the watch-tower may have to be main. rained for a time before the answer comes, but it is sure to come in some form or another. 4. But last of all here, this standing upon the watch-tower has been regarded by some as the prophet's continuance at his work notwithstanding the difficulties that encompassed it. Not unfrequently in the Old Testament is the prophet's office compared to that of a watchman. What the watchman in the tower did in the earthly sphere — keeping an outlook for the people and warning them of coming danger — the prophet was to do in the spiritual sphere. And so when the prophet here says: "I will stand upon my watch-tower," he is regarded as meaning, "I will not leave my post — the place in which God has put me, but will wait in the faithful discharge of every commanded duty for the solving of my doubts and the removal of my difficulties." Certainly in acting in such a way he took the very best plan of getting his way made clear. When we allow our perplexities, whatever they may be, to keep us back from work God is plainly laying to our hands, they will increase around us. Activity and steadfastness in duty will purge our spiritual atmosphere, while melancholy in active brooding will laden it with pestilential vapours. A higher attainment still is to have the soul stilled before God, and expectant even in the midst of our labour. II. WHAT IS ENJOYED IN THIS WATCH-TOWER. The prophet's experience was one so rich and blessed that a glimpse of it may well stir us up to follow his example: 1. He heard the Divine voice for which he listened. "Then Jehovah answered me and said." He became aware of a Divine presence within his soul, and conscious of a Divine voice speaking to his heart. His waiting and looking up met with a rich reward. Though this experience cannot now come in the same form to the trustful waiting soul, yet, in its inner essence, it may and does come. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit within believers as their tether is a blessed reality. They who submit themselves to His guidance will be led by Him into all truth, will not only gain a deep insight into God's will, but will see its bearing upon events in Providence. It was a very simple truth that was now divinely spoken to the prophet: "Behold his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith." The man or the race of men that are lifted up with vain self-confidence shall experience no tranquillity, but they who abide firm in their allegiance to God and make Him their trust shall he maintained by His mighty gracious power. The simplest truths, that may in some of their aspects have long been familiar to us, are often used in the teaching of the Spirit to lift the soul above the mists that obscure its vision. It will be the declaration of truths thus divinely spoken to our hearts that will be accompanied with greatest power. 2. Again, let us notice that this experience brought him a new sense of the Divine presence with His people. The song with which the sad prophecy ends, recorded in the third chapter, expresses this sense of the Divine nearness to His people. The land that had witnessed such marked manifestations of His presence and power, the memory of which was fondly cherished by the pious, had not been forsaken by Him. What had been done when "God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran," would again be done for the overthrow of the proud oppressor, and for the deliverance of the humble fearers of His name. The eternal order lay behind the confusion caused by the wicked, and would in due time assert itself, for the God of this order was behind all. 3. So the prophet finds his labours for the land and people he loved sustained by a restful hope. Dark days may come in which the fig-tree shall not blossom, and there shall be no fruit in the vine, and the field shall yield no meat, but when their purifying work is accomplished brighter times shall dawn. His labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. Neither will ours if done in the right spirit. ( R. Morton. ) Watchfulness W. Horwood. I. THE DUTY OF WATCHFULNESS. 1. This duty arises from various causes which affect us in our outward circumstances, as well as in our minds and hearts. They are our enemies or our friends; such as build up the character of man for good, and lift it heavenwards, or mar it and force it downwards to destruction. The ever-present, active, and all-pervading causes of good and evil, acting upon man's moral and spiritual nature, provide a powerful reason for this duty. For while a man is thus taught his dependence upon God for strength, and is shewn his own weakness in the battle of life, he is at the same time taught to use every precaution against his fees, to guard every avenue of his heart against their influence, and to be vigilant and watchful in all his daily undertakings. 2. But watchfulness as a moral duty may be considered as a recognition of God's laws and government. The man who waits, like Habakkuk, for the Almighty, will see the hand of God everywhere. He recognises God as the watchful Father, noting every tear and hearing every sigh that inspires the watchful heart with hope, and that sheds a bright ray of comfort through the gloom. II. FAITH FOUNDED UPON THE REVELATIONS OF GOD IS AN ARGUMENT AGAINST ALL MISTRUST AND DOUBT OF HIS POWER AND GOODNESS. 1. The answer which God gave to the prayers of Habakkuk was the authority by which he met every quibble of his opponents, and by which he confronted his enmity. 2. A true faith acts on the revelation of God in the life history of Christ, and on the soul's immortality. In the life of Christ, weighted with suffering the most intense, we find a solution to our own troubles, as well as their sanction. Then let us "stand upon our watch." ( W. Horwood. ) On the watch-tower There is no remedy, when such trials as those mentioned by the prophet in the first chapter meet us, except we learn to raise up our minds above the world. For if we contend with Satan, according to our own view of things, he will a hundred times overwhelm us, and we can never be able to resist him. Let us therefore know that here is shown to us the right way of fighting with him: when our minds are agitated with unbelief, when doubts respecting God's providence creep in, when things are so confused in this world as to involve us in darkness, so that no light appears, we must bid adieu to our own reason; for all our thoughts are nothing worth when we seek, according to our own reason, to form a judgment. Until then the faithful ascend to their tower, and stand in their citadel, of which the prophet here speaks, their temptations will drive them here and there, and sink them as it were in a bottomless gulf. But that we may more fully understand the meaning, we must know that there is here an implied contrast between the tower and the citadel, which the prophet mentions, and a station on earth. As long, then, as we judge according to our own perceptions we walk on the earth; and while we do so, many clouds arise, and Satan scatters ashes in our eyes, and wholly darkens our judgment, and thus it happens that we lie down altogether confounded. It is hence wholly necessary that we should tread our reason under foot, and come nigh to God Himself. We have said that the tower is the recess of the mind, but how can we ascend to it? Even by following the Word of the Lord. For we creep on the earth; nay, we find that our flesh ever draws us downward, — except when the truth from above becomes to us, as it were, wings, or a ladder, or a vehicle, we cannot rise up one foot, but, on the contrary, we shall seek refuges on the earth rather than ascend into heaven. But let the Word of God became our ladder, or our vehicle, or our wings, and, however difficult the ascent may be, we shall yet be able to fly upward, provided God's Word be allowed to have its own authority. We hence see how unsuitable is the view of those interpreters who think that the tower and the citadel is the Word of God; for it is by God's Word that we are raised up to this citadel, that is, to the safeguard of hope, where we may remain safe and secure while looking down from this eminence on those things which disturb us and darken all our senses as long as we lie on the earth. This is one thing. Then the repetition is not without its use; for the prophet says, "On my tower will I stand, on the citadel will I set myself." He does not repeat in other words the same thing because it is obscure, but in order to remind the faithful that, though they are inclined to sloth, they must yet strive to extricate themselves. And we soon find how slothful we become, except each of us stirs up himself. For when any perplexity takes hold on our minds we soon succumb to despair. This, then, is the reason why the prophet, after having spoken of the tower, again mentions the citadel. ( John Calvin . ) Watching for God George Hutcheson. 1. It is our safest way, in times of temptation and perplexity, not to lie down under discouragement, but to recollect ourselves, and fix our eyes on God, who only can clear our minds and quiet our spirits; therefore the prophet, after his deep plunge in temptation, sets himself to look to God, and get somewhat to answer upon his arguing, or reproof and expostulation, that so his mind may be settled. 2. It is by the Word that the Lord cleareth darkness, and would have His people answer their temptations and silence their reasonings. 3. Meditation, earnest prayer, withdrawing of our minds off from things visible, and elevating them towards God, are the means in the use whereof God revealeth Himself, and His mind from His Word, to His people in dark times. 4. Faithful ministers ought to acquit themselves like watchmen in a city or army, to be awake when others sleep, to be watching with God, and over the people, seeking after faithful instructions which they may communicate, seeking to be filled from heaven with light and life, that they may pour it out upon the people; and all this especially in hard times. 5. Albeit the Lord's people may have their own debates and faintings betwixt God and them, yet it is their part to smother these as much as they can, and to bring up a good report of God and His way to others. ( George Hutcheson. ) On noting the providences of God Richard Harvey, M. A. The observer of grace should be studious to discern the workings of Divine providence, and to consider their purposes in the counsels of the Most High. We inquire into the importance of observing the various ways in which the Almighty is pleased to address us, and of determining how far we have hitherto regarded them, and turned them to our individual improvement. In reply to the complaints of His servant, the Almighty shows that mercy would not be long extended; that the Chaldeans would soon inflict summary vengeance on the Jews. To these declarations of the Divine displeasure the prophet rejoins by stating the conviction of his own safety, and of the protection which would be extended to the rest of God's people. He had hoped that God would have been satisfied with gentler corrections, and not have employed an idolatrous nation to punish His chosen people. But he resolves to wait patiently, in quietness and in confidence, for the answer of God, that he may know what statement he was to publish. Every Christian is as a man standing on the watch, as one who will have to give account; who watches to see what God will say to him. The will of God is declared both in His Word and in His works. The great end to be effected by watchfulness is, that we may know our actual state, and be ready at any time for aught that may befall us. It is that we may not be surprised, that we may not be taken at unawares. What do you propose to answer when you are called to appear before an all-seeing God? He has not only spoken to us in national judgments and mercies, He has said a word privately to each one of us as individual. ( Richard Harvey, M. A. ) Man's moral mission in the world Homilist. Wherefore are we in this world? We are not here by choice, nor by chance. Man's moral mission — I. CONSISTS IN RECEIVING COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE ETERNAL MIND. This will appear — 1. From man's nature as a spiritual being. (1) Man has a native instinct for it. (2) A native capacity for it. (3) A native necessity for it. 2. From man's condition as a fallen being. As a sinner, man has a deeper and a more special need than angels can have. Communications from God are of infinite moment to man. 3. From the purposes of Christ's mediation. Christ came to bring men to God. His Cross is the meeting-place between man and his Maker. 4. From the special manifestations of God for the purpose. These we have in the Bible. 5. From the general teaching of the Bible. In the Book men are called to audience with God. II. HOW ARE DIVINE COMMUNICATIONS TO BE RECEIVED I Two things are necessary — 1. That we resort to the right scene. The prophet to his "tower." 2. That we resort to the right scene in the right spirit. III. MAN'S MORAL MISSION CONSISTS IN IMPARTING COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE ETERNAL MIND. That we have to impart as well as to receive is evident — 1. From the tendency of Divine thoughts to express themselves. Ideas of a religious kind always struggle for utterance. 2. From the universal adaptation of Divine thoughts. 3. From the spiritual dependence of man upon man. 4. From the general teaching of the Bible. IV. MAN'S MORAL MISSION CONSISTS IN THE PRACTICAL REALISATION OF COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE ETERNAL MIND. In the Divine purpose there is a period fixed for the realisation of every Divine promise. However distant it may seem, our duty is to wait in earnest practical faith for it. Learn who it is that fulfils his moral missions in the world. The man who practically carries out God's revelation in the spirit and habits of his life. Notice — (1) The reasonableness of religion. (2) The grandeur of a religious life. (3) The function of Christianity.What is the special design of the Gospel? To qualify man to fulfil his mission on earth. ( Homilist. ) Write the vision, and make it plain. Habakkuk 2:2 Teaching must be plain Think of that railway excursion train as it hurries onwards with impetuous speed! A vast crowd is collected there, and how various and complicated are the interests of each! A rapid impulse bears forward the whole; that impulse resides in every member of the group; one single bystander directs and controls it all. In an unexpected moment a shock, as of a thunderbolt, crushes them together; in the twinkling of an eye the elements of destruction are terribly let loose; each hapless one becomes an instrument of injury or death to his neighbour. What pain can paint the terror, the agony, the anguish of such a scene! They will be remembered for long, long years in mutilated forms, in shaken nerves, in bereaved or orphaned homes; the records will make multitudes shudder by their firesides, or will haunt them in their slumbers. Such have been the effects of one false or mistaken signal! Let us who are ministers of the Gospel remember what interests we hold, and by how much the soul is more precious than the body Let us beware! There are in the age in which we live, spiritual impulses innumerable, strange, impetuous. And we are the signalmen! ( J. G. Miall. ) The voice of the old pulpit J. Roberts. I. THE OLD PULPIT'S APOLOGY FOR SPEAKING. I am old. My outward appearance has been diversified at different times and places. I have a variety of experiences. My great influence is acknowledged by a large majority in every age and clime. II. THE OLD PULPIT'S COMPLAINTS AND BOASTINGS. 1. My complaints —(1) I complain because some very ungodly characters have taken the liberty of ascending my steps.(2) Because some look at me as a mere workshop to make a living in.(3) Because I have been compelled to serve as a stage to exhibit men, and not Christ.(4) Because I have been too long used as a place of refuge for blind bigotry and prejudice.(5) Because many who have stood on my floor did not do my work with all their might.(6) Because there is not more attention paid me. 2. My boastings —(1) In the multitude of my sons.(2) Of the fame of my sons.(3) In the greatness and glory of my themes.(4) In the extent of my influence in the world.(5) In the preservation of my life in spite of numerous and powerful enemies.(6) That I am the great favourite of heaven. ( J. Roberts. ) The simplicity and freeness of the Gospel salvation W. Lindsay Alexander, D. D. The vision was to be written upon tables, and made plain, that every one who read it might run. He who gave the vision commanded that it should be made plain upon tables, that the way of escape might be at once learned by those that were in peril, and that without a moment's delay they might run in that way and be delivered. What was the danger with which the people were threatened, and from which this vision was to indicate the way of escape? It is usually thought to be an anticipated invasion of the Chaldeans. It seems to me the danger is that to which all men as sinners are exposed; and that the way of escape indicated is that which is revealed to us by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I regard the prophet as here commissioned to announce to his countrymen, and ultimately, through the volume of inspiration, to the world at large, the folly, sin, and danger of rebellion against God, and forgetfulness of Him; and having thus warned them of the evil and peril of their ways, to urge upon them the importance of running in that way which has been opened for their escape. In favour of this interpretation the following considerations may be adduced — 1. Look at the circumstances in which the prophet tells us this com mission was delivered to him. 2. In verse 4 is a passage three times quoted by the apostle Paul, as applicable to the salvation of the Gospel — to the enjoyment of eternal life. 3. Peter ( Acts 10:43 ) tells Cornelius that all the prophets preached the doctrine of salvation by faith through Christ. 4. The interpretation proposed seems to give greater unity and appropriateness to the prophet's subsequent declarations. The commission, then, which the prophet received from God was a commission to declare plainly and faithfully to men their guilt and danger as sinners against God, and to point them to that salvation in connection with which God has revealed Himself to them, that they may escape the calamities to which their iniquity has exposed them. It is plain, then, that in order to ascertain correctly the way of salvation we must go to the written records of God's will, and read. ( W. Lindsay Alexander, D. D. ) For the vision is yet for an appointed time. Habakkuk 2:3 Visions Morgan Dix. He whom men style a visionary has for the most part little or no honour among them. But no one can help having visions unless he be devoid of imagination. A vision is an inward view, an image, or series of images, broader, larger, grander, deeper than aught that the bodily eye can see; it is evoked by some outward sign, on which a spiritual force acts. Visions may come from God; they may bring men near to God. There are day visions. It was to be a sign of the latter days, that in them there should be second sight far into hidden things. And a life without visions is not that which an imaginative and sympathetic man or woman would care to live. There are false visions and true; some that never come, and some that will come, and truly. The false visions are those which have this world for their boundary, and the things of this world for their substance. They generally relate to self: to one's own aggrandisement, to one's own enjoyment, or to the gratification of some desire of the natural heart. There is a great variety in them, even at that rate. It is sometimes the will of God that men should get the discipline they need, and without which they would be lost for ever, by making the pilgrimage of life with visions before them which for ever fly pursuit. Turn from visions that fade to one which does not fade. That vision is supernatural; it is pure vision, for it is seen by faith, and by faith only. What is that vision of these latter days? Jesus came to earth, lived, disappeared. But with that departure came a vision such as never mortals beheld before. The vision of a ransomed and purified race of men and women; of the destruction of all that is false, and the setting straight all that is wrong; of perfect truth, and a clear view thereof. Then never lose faith, never fear. God's light will grow brighter and stronger every year as you fight off the powers of darkness and hold faster to Him, and at last you shall see what made the light of your life, and you shall find all truth and all knowledge

2:1-4 When tossed and perplexed with doubts about the methods of Providence, we must watch against temptations to be impatient. When we have poured out complaints and requests before God, we must observe the answers God gives by his word, his Spirit, and providences; what the Lord will say to our case. God will not disappoint the believing expectations of those who wait to hear what he will say unto them. All are concerned in the truths of God's word. Though the promised favour be deferred long, it will come at last, and abundantly recompense us for waiting. The humble, broken-hearted, repenting sinner, alone seeks to obtain an interest in this salvation. He will rest his soul on the promise, and on Christ, in and through whom it is given. Thus he walks and works, as well as lives by faith, perseveres to the end, and is exalted to glory; while those who distrust or despise God's all-sufficiency will not walk uprightly with him. The just shall live by faith in these precious promises, while the performance of them is deferred. Only those made just by faith, shall live, shall be happy here and for ever. 2:5-14 The prophet reads the doom of all proud and oppressive powers that bear hard upon God's people. The lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, are the entangling snares of men; and we find him that led Israel captive, himself led captive by each of these. No more of what we have is to be reckoned ours, than what we come honestly by. Riches are but clay, thick clay; what are gold and silver but white and yellow earth? Those who travel through thick clay, are hindered and dirtied in their journey; so are those who go through the world in the midst of abundance of wealth. And what fools are those that burden themselves with continual care about it; with a great deal of guilt in getting, saving, and spending it, and with a heavy account which they must give another day! They overload themselves with this thick clay, and so sink themselves down into destruction and perdition. See what will be the end hereof; what is gotten by violence from others, others shall take away by violence. Covetousness brings disquiet and uneasiness into a family; he that is greedy of gain troubles his own house; what is worse, it brings the curse of God upon all the affairs of it. There is a lawful gain, which, by the blessing of God, may be a comfort to a house; but what is got by fraud and injustice, will bring poverty and ruin upon a family. Yet that is not the worst; Thou hast sinned against thine own soul, hast endangered it. Those who wrong their neighbours, do much greater wrong to their own souls. If the sinner thinks he has managed his frauds and violence with art and contrivance, the riches and possessions he heaped together will witness against him. There are not greater drudges in the world than those who are slaves to mere wordly pursuits. And what comes of it? They find themselves disappointed of it, and disappointed in it; they will own it is worse than vanity, it is vexation of spirit. By staining and sinking earthly glory, God manifests and magnifies his own glory, and fills the earth with the knowledge of it, as plentifully as waters cover the sea, which are deep, and spread far and wide. 2:15-20 A severe woe is pronounced against drunkenness; it is very fearful against all who are guilty of drunkenness at any time, and in any place, from the stately palace to the paltry ale-house. To give one drink who is in want, who is thirsty and poor, or a weary traveller, or ready to perish, is charity; but to give a neighbour drink, that he may expose himself, may disclose secret concerns, or be drawn into a bad bargain, or for any such purpose, this is wickedness. To be guilty of this sin, to take pleasure in it, is to do what we can towards the murder both of soul and body. There is woe to him, and punishment answering to the sin. The folly of worshipping idols is exposed. The Lord is in his holy temple in heaven, where we have access to him in the way he has appointed. May we welcome his salvation, and worship him in his earthly temples, through Christ Jesus, and by the influence of the Holy Spirit.